The Real
by zorieo
Summary: Collection of stories about the real classes of the 1970s. (RnR please)
1. Chapter 1

She's a twisted flash of eccentric summer smiles and wide green eyes, flyaway crimson hair and emerald writings on her wrists. She's a personification of promises and _being yourself_ , and Loony Auntie Lila would be proud, sweetie, because Lily Mae Evans is _special_.

Her Daddy loves her - because he never got to be her, and maybe she has a chance - and her Mum's proud of her - her little Lily Mae, she's going places, going _far_ \- and her sister used to admire her - she's her annoying little brat of a sister, but they've got it better than most - and Lily doesn't care either way, because she's _Lily_.

Maybe she shouldn't tap out the rhythms in her head, or talk about magic, and maybe her socks should match, but who cares?

Lily's only eleven; she's got time to grow up.

First year begins, and as Lily sits on the old stool, Professor McGonagall hovering over her with a smile, she feels stuck in the middle. Remus on one side - glowing Gryffindor gold and rebellious red - and Severus on the other - sly Slytherin silver and gorgeous green - and plain little Lily, caught between the two.

She realises that this is what the world looks like when you have no clue what you're doing.

" _SLYTHERIN_!"

Lily almost expected Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff; one of those little pointless houses that people congratulate you for. But it's Slytherin, and she sees the Hat's point, so she goes along with the tide and hopes that she won't go under.

She can't swim.

First year flies by and Lily learns that her 'big-brother' Al (an empty, lonely boy) has a reputation here. He's _powerful_ , not like at home, where they Evans moved to a magical community, and where Al is nothing special, where he's awash with cousins and Prewett red (disowned cause he's a Slytherin Prewett). Here, they both shine _emerald_.

The summer after, Lily brushes up on her Quidditch - there are two openings in the autumn, a Chaser and a Keeper, and she wants that Chaser position so bad she thinks her heart might snap, just like her sanity. She writes all over her new broom and her mother shouts at her and Al garbles something she can't understand.

But she's _Lily Evans_ , and they should know better by now.

She's made for summer days and insanity.

Al is a Beater and self-proclaimed Slytherin prince, so Lily does get in at the start of her second year, but it's as a Keeper, not a Chaser.

It's kind of ironic, and she loves it.

Second year, and Lily decides to be herself. She sneaks into fifth-year Astronomy lessons - she learns all about the moon - and misses Transfiguration and writes all over her dorm walls. She writes phrases from her favourite literature - ' _We're all mad here_ ' and ' _To die would be an awfully big adventure_ ' - and she paints the quotes on her heart.

Her dorm-mates half love her and half hate her and Lily honestly can't tell the difference.

At Christmas lunch, Lily mutters about beetles under the table and how Al's wings are falling off, but Mum and Daddy don't pay attention because they're fighting over who gets custody of the Brussels sprouts.

Then they find Al's stash of illegal potions and drugs and whatnot, so Lily happily fades into the background, and Severus forgets to ask what's wrong because he's too caught up in the _unforgivable_.

Third year rolls around, and Al leaves school with a few more NEWTs than expected, no idea about his future and a promise to never come back.

All of Lily's friends are getting _boy_ friends now, but Lily doesn't really see the point, apart from the kissing. Which is just a trading of saliva in the first place. She tells them that and they start to think that maybe Lily _is_ crazy.

That summer, Lily runs away - Mum and Daddy's divorce and life has been hectic - and Al's too busy pulling disappearing acts and god knows what back alley Severus is in at the moment, so nobody really finds her.

Lily comes back, of course, and runs to her mother's arms, who tells her that Daddy's found someone else now but she doesn't care, really. Daddy's all Mum thinks about, years after the divorce papers were filed.

Lily thinks of summer and wonders if Mum's just as insane as she is.

Fourth year begins and Lily starts to climb her way up the social ladder. She just as insane as always, but she's _using_ it now, so she takes her place as Slytherin princess and kind of loves it.

Severus hides behind some mask he's created over the summer and ignores the new round of Gryffindors in their faces, but Lily learns to enjoy it and makes a scandal out of whatever she can. She becomes _associates_ with Lucius, a boyfriend of Cissa's and a friend of Al's, and learns that you can still be alone in a crowded room.

It's maybe almost kind of sad.

Two weeks before the start of her fifth year, Lily sleeps with Lucius, and vaguely thinks that he tastes like summer. She never tells Cissa, or Al, or even herself. She blocks it out of head until it's three months later and she's still throwing up in the bathroom.

She's fifteen, and pregnant, so what did you expect her to do?

Lily can't look after a baby; she can barely look after herself. She's insane - she belongs in a white room with white bed sheets and a straight jacket, not coloured walls and baby blankets and a _baby_.

So she has a abortion, and never tells Lucius (or Cissa, or Al) and kind of almost maybe regrets it for the rest of her life.

Lily thinks she likes the name Summer.

Sixth year starts, and for once, Lily is the only woman for Potter at Hogwarts. Remus starts watching her a bit more - worried, she presumes - and she becomes a little more wild, a little more dangerous. She hangs Amelia Bones from the Astronomy tower for fun, and can't explain to Professor McGonagall _why_.

She gets chucked off the Quidditch team and they never do find a better Keeper.

At Christmas - the usual family gathering, you understand, with a few hidden extras - Lily shags Lorcan Scamander, even though he's twenty-four, and regrets that, too.

Lily returns to her sixth year and falls apart, piece by piece, and thinks about her brothers - Al's cleaned up his act a bit, but it's only a matter of time before his girlfriend finds the heroine - and Sev darling, well, the family don't talk about him, and her beloved parents - one insane, and one who never got a chance to be normal anyway.

They're all freaks in their own way, ever since Daddy and Mummy were whipped or chucked in the cellar by their 'pure' families.

Suddenly, it's her last year and Lily finds out that Cissa married Lucius over the summer- caught snogging in a cupboard and then betrothed apparently, can you believe it? - and she reinvents herself, not really thinking of anyone or anything in particular.

 _Really_.

She wears pantomime sunglasses and thigh-high emerald combat boots and she makes a name for herself.

Lily sings 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' at the breakfast table and sees dark things around the corners, but she's _Lily Evans_ , darlin', and don't you know that she's the exception to every rule?

It's only her and Severus and Lucy and Clary left now, and Severus' got problems of his own , Clary's off in his own little world, Lucy's the new Hogwarts' princess-in-training, and Lily's _Lily_.

Seventh year drags its feet, and it's still only Halloween. Lily cries in a corner and pretends she has friend besides her Potter stalker. Daddy is called, because the school is _concerned_ for her (and they both know the only reason she's still there is because of the last name she didn't get to show to others).

Daddy doesn't say anything, at all really, but traces the various-shaped scars that litter her forearms with something like reverence in his emerald eyes.

Then he tells her, quietly, that he hated summer, when he was younger. He liked autumn leaves and Hogwarts snow and maybe even springtime in Hogsmeade, but he hated summer.

Daddy says he changed his mind the day he met her, because she reminds him of summer, and he loves her, does she know?

Daddy always understands.

Lily tells him she's doing well (which means that she's really not) and that she'll get her act together (which tells him that she's _scared_ ) and says that Mum's cooking isn't a patch on his (which admits that she's missing him) and asks after Al (and doesn't mention James) and Daddy reads between the lines, and says, " _Okay_."

Lily sobs in his arms and thinks that maybe insanity is just a state of mind.

So she finishes Hogwarts with NEWTs in Charms and Care of Magical Creatures and Divination, and Lily's kind of happy with her lot.

She spends six months hunting down James and - well. She hunts down James and sits on his lap and asks him how he ended up the most normal of all of that Hogwarts year. He laughs and asks Lily to stay, and she accepts.


	2. Chapter 2

Albus Fabian Prewett is _brilliant_.

He just... _is_.

He's handsome - of course he is, he's just like his father, don't you know? - and he's brave - a Gryffindor to the core, who could expect anything else - and he's intelligent - almost a Ravenclaw, that one, but he won't be, surely? - and he does a mean Bat-Bogey Hex, of course - his mother's Matilda Prewett, do you remember?

Albus is brilliant and daring and, okay, maybe he's shy, and he's bitter, and he's _corrupt_ ; but that doesn't show yet, because don't you know he's just eleven?

His brothers are oh-so-perfect Fabian and Gideon, but they are arrogant, and they're rebels, and Albus won't ever be that.

His sister is oh-so-perfect Molly Prewett, but she's too grown up for her age and never had a childhood, so Albus won't end up like her.

His parents are oh-so-perfect Fergus and Matilda Prewett but they're getting a divorce, did you know? Didn't work out, they said. Never meant to be, they said. Parted on good terms, though, still friends. Friends who fight and shout and scream and can't stand to be in the same room as each other.

But the Prophet never lies, so why would you believe that?

Albus leaves his father behind, waving from the station, and sits alone in his carriage. His brothers have other friends, another life, and he is not them.

He sits on the stool, and he feels a bit braver, a bit bolder, knowing that his Daddy won't care if Albus is put in Slytherin. Does that make him more of a Gryffindor? He hopes so. Oh, how he hopes so.

" _SLYTHERIN_!"

But it's still not Gryffindor, and Albus can't help but feel a little disappointed.

Fabian ad Gideon don't talk to him, ever again.

Lucius says Care of Magical Creatures is boring, but Divination is exciting, and third year's definitely going to be the best, now that his new little brother's home, where he belongs.

Albus nods and smiles, like he's expected to, and pretends like he doesn't want to wear red. The harlequin in his eyes says otherwise.

He survives in Slytherin, though, with a mix of cunning, bribes, the Prewett name and just being _Albus_. He changes a bit, over the year; Lily asks what's wrong. Albus blanks her with pride, and returns to silver and green with a smile.

"He's so distant," Lily sings when they return for the summer, and Severus grunts - a typical stereotypical Potion's prodigy grunt - "We don't know him anymore."

But Albus is _daring_ , and Albus is _brave_... he just belongs in Slytherin.

Second year is a flash of harlequin and gold, but Albus- sorry, _Alain_ is at home here, with aloof Imogen Parkinson, intelligent Raquel Pucey, sly Rory Zabini and maybe even handsome Lucius Malfoy.

Not in that horrid place of St. Catchpole where he's been disowned. But home with his new adopted family- the Delacroix's.

Alain meets more people than last year - friends in his house, enemies in his house, and alliances in the others - and it seems as though being in Slytherin is just a game of chess. You play till you win... or your own king falls.

He has _connections_ now; not just _Hadrian Delacroix_ and so on, but real connections, with underground missionaries and contacts and fake IDs.

Alain Hadrian Delacroix has made a name for himself, carved in harlequin stone.

Third year means Lily Evans and playing with the _big boys_ now; Alain tries out for the Quidditch team and ends up as a Beater. It isn't his first choice, but they say he's got potential, he's got talent, and that's good enough for him.

"Al," Lucius says, when Alain falls in too deep and almost drags little Lily with him, "I think you've gone too far. The Parkinsons and Zabinis are one thing, but my dad, Al? My _grandfather_? You don't know what they're capable of, mate. You can't get anything from them but a broken home, broken nose, and broke bank account."

"Apart from I've already got the wrecked home life, it's not my bank account, and a broken nose is just part of the deal," Alain replies, but it's empty.

If Lucius Malfoy can see through him, he's in trouble.

He spends the summer holidays of third year stepping up his Potions effort. Alain figures that, if he can't rule the world, he can at least rule some of it.

Some of his products, Alain sells on the market - the black market, of course - and others he stores, ready for later. He invents and creates and the world is his oyster, here in his smoky room with just a cauldron for company.

But it's not a bad life.

Fourth year begins, and the teachers remain suspicious and the other students scared, but what can Alain say? It's good business. Illegal, but good.

Christmas of fourth year is - for lack of a better word - hectic. Alain's parents _may_ have found his secret stash of highly illegal Potions ingredients and wide array of equally illegal Muggle drugs.

Alain doesn't return to Hogwarts for the rest of the year - the rumours he _does_ return to are surprisingly inventive and he almost feels proud of his harlequin house - and spends it being home schooled with frequent visits from both magic and Muggle therapists.

Fifth year is surprisingly uneventful.

He sleeps his way through the Slytherin quarter of his year - only the girls though, Alain won't go that far for rebellion - and the year below... and he's half way through the year above by the time Easter rolls around.

It's in the summer holidays before sixth year when Alain escapes Delacroix Manor, which is his house now - darling Daddy dearest, who's having an affair with some posh twat he won't tell anyone about - and roams around London, sitting in cafes and bookshops and pretending that he's worth something.

Then he meets Alice.

Alice lives just inside London, and is _absolutely gorgeous_. Her dark hair is out of control, she wears harlequin glasses, she doesn't have dimples, and her obsession is Muggle literature, of the mystery and fantasy persuasion.

Because Alice is a pureblood who likes to think she's a Muggle.

She spends summer days telling Alain about Muggle Chemistry and Physics and suddenly, Potions becomes something else entirely.

It becomes more than a business, and more like a... _hobby_.

They write letters weekly - Alain sneaks down to Hogsmeade every Friday and posts his letters in the Muggle post-box kept there for the Muggleborn students - and everyone is surprised. Because Alain stops. He stops his complex, ever-growing underground system, he stops slowly taking over Hogwarts, and he stops the drugs; not completely, of course, but enough for people to notice.

Alain gets his life back on track, one way or another, and doesn't hold press interviews or photo shoots and runs away from cameras rather than chasing them with his middle finger raised.

Sixth year flies by and he can never really tell you why.

Lily's labelled as crazy and Hadrian hasn't written in weeks, but Alain doesn't have the heart to ask _why_.

Seventh year begins, and times runs away with him. NEWTs loom and he almost panics - he loses thousands of galleons in the process and stops writing to Alice.

He flirts round Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff and tries to forget about the Pure-Muggle girl from just inside of London just across the Great Hall.

It doesn't work.

Alain runs away, though, on his last Christmas Day at Hogwarts, and eats Brussels sprouts and turkey at Alice's house with her family and little magic house in her little Muggle street on the Muggle side of London.

She doesn't like him because he's a Delacroix, or because he's a Slytherin, but because he's _Alain_. She doesn't care about the war, and if Alain has his way, she never will.

He returns home for Boxing Day and his mum cries, but for some reason, Alain can't stop smiling.

Alain eventually gets onto the Hogwarts Express for the last time and sits with warm Imogen Parkinson, caring Raquel Pucey, cheerful Rory Zabini and intelligent Lucius Malfoy. He's in his element.

He's going home.

He carries on Potions after school, and his complex underground system becomes something more - Alain' Potions are now legendary, the best in the trade, and his parents are almost proud. He sells them world-wide, and creates new ones and maybe even cures lycanthropy, if he dares to hope. (If that damn Damocles Belby would apprentice him).

Alice smiles when she sees him and asks how his day was, and Alain lies every time because he _just can't tell her_.

Severus asks him why he's pretending.

But one day, he holds Alice's hand and he tells her _everything_ ; about the world she'll never be a part of, a war she shouldn't pay attention to, and about a boy she thought she knew. She stays with him, though. It's more than Alain could've hoped for.

And when she meets his parents, Alice looks Hadrian in his harlequin eyes and tells him to be proud of his son, no matter what.

Alain falls in love with her that day, and never gets back up.

Alice is a Pure-Muggle and she doesn't understand their need for the wizarding world, and maybe she never will, and Alain is famous when he doesn't want to be, and he's amazing at Potions and a narcissist and corrupt.

But, in the end, they're Albus and Alice Delacroix, and they are _brilliant_.

(Until, of course, that damn marriage contract with Frank Longbottom)...


	3. Chapter 3

_October 31st 1973_

On this night and so on, the Marauders swear to follow each other till death do us part.

We the Marauders swear to always keep the Great Power a secret; the Marauders swear to always protect the Wolf.

~We swear that the Wolf shall be that which binds or breaks the Marauders~

The Marauders swear to make Mischief everlasting and to never betray each other, for when this pact is violated, that mischief-maker (no longer a Marauder) shall be dead (figuratively, ((maybe)) not literally).

We, the Marauders, solemnly swear that Mischief shall never be managed until the Marauders die with the Great Power undiscovered, the Wolf is safe in death _(and we shall never really die…)_

Signed in no significant order,

Padfoot

Moony

Prongs

Wormtail

~the Marauders


	4. Chapter 4

Sirius never meant to become a white sheep in the Moste Ancient and Noble House of Black.

It had happened so gradually that, to begin with, he hadn't even noticed. It had started with normal childish defiance: Sirius had always been one to test boundaries – needing to find out exactly how far he could push his mother before she snapped and punished him.

Being brought up, for the most part, by the family maids and butlers, Sirius longed to gain the attention of his haughty mother and almost permanently absent father, and he found that the most effective way to do this was by getting into trouble.

It started with little things. He stole a jar of nail vanish from his cousin, Narcissa, and painted a handlebar moustache like Uncle Alphard's on his Grandmother's portrait which hung in the hall. Unfortunately for Isadora Black's portrait, the nail varnish was Fleeter's Everlasting Colour-Changing Nail Varnish, so her raging picture was taken down and hidden in the attic.

Sirius was spanked and locked in the cellar for a day where he screamed and beat small fists against the door, afraid of the shadowy bulks of the wine-barrels and the skittering things in dark corners.

One Christmas Eve a few months after his seventh birthday, he spent a quietly productive night chewing up thirteen packets of Floozy's Best Blowing Gum and sticking it into his sleeping cousin Bellatrix's hair. The resulting drama the next morning was well worth another spanking and the confiscation of his pocket money for two weeks.

Undeterred, and drunk on the attention and his creativity, Sirius pulled his next prank when the Malfoy family came to visit for a dinner party.

Lucius Malfoy had sneered at Sirius's new green velvet dress jacket and Sirius smiled brightly at him, then later enlisted the help of his little brother, Regulus, to lure Lucius away from the main party and into a spare room in which Isadora Black's old swallowing chair was stored.

It was only much later, when the Malfoys were due to leave, that the older boy was discovered swallowed almost up to his neck by the massive, fur-upholstered chair, swearing fluently at Sirius and Regulus who were spelling the older boy's blonde locks with coloured streaks of glittery pink and violet.


	5. Chapter 5

She is Marlene Mckinnon. She is a Gryffindor, 'til the day she dies. No one denies that, and no one tries, because the Mckinnons are a long, pureblood line that has been in Gryffindor for centuries, longer than the Longbottoms, longer than the Potters.

Her twin has always said, though, that she fights like a Slytherin, laughs like a Ravenclaw, smiles like a Hufflepuff, and thinks like a Gryffindor.

She never did explain what she meant.

But right now, amidst danger and sparks, Marlene fights like a Slytherin.

That's what she thinks, as she launches herself at the next Death Eater, throwing spells like they are nothing, yelling incantations as though this is a childhood game that she is playing.

But here, in this moment, her cropped hair is swinging around her and the world is alight with red and green and her feet are dancing on the tarmac as though it is the polished floor of the Bones Manor. Everything is choreographed and performed to perfection; from the way she pirouettes away from a curse to when she casts a hex behind her.

There are five of them. Their masks have fallen to the floor, and she casts an Incendio on the nearest one just to watch it burn.

She realizes that she does fight like a Slytherin. Her curses her cunning and her eyes are narrowed with malice, and she feels in control and she likes it. Maybe too much.

Then, she laughs like a Ravenclaw.

As she fights, she does laugh. It is a little bit eccentric, and controlled, but it's the epitome of quiet thoughtfulness and studiousness.

It's free. It's like a bird's song; it's open-ended and full of promises and it's so astoundingly simple and it's not special or unique. It's just a laugh that belongs to a Ravenclaw.

Carlene would be proud.

And, she must complete the set, and so she smiles like a Hufflepuff.

The first time her twin told her this, she said it very slowly. Like it was a secret, or like it was a promise, and she was afraid of breaking it. "You know, Marlene... you smile like a... like a Hufflepuff." She stuttered and she paused but the intention was clear. Even now, it is something to smile about.

Her smile is kind. Its patient and it's small, just a curve of the lips and twinkle of the eyes. Her smile is loyal. You can always rely on it to be there, right beside you. Her smile is that of the Hufflepuff House, because it shines.

Oh, how she shines.

Of course, though, she thinks like a Gryffindor.

Every move is impulsive and maybe just a little reckless, and when she fights those Death Eaters for everything she's worth, she doesn't feel fear. She doesn't think she's in danger.

Her eyes are alight, shining black in the darkness, and everything about her screams Brave! Because she is.

From when she steps back and aims a Blood Boiling Curse at the nearest Death Eater for the first time, to when she catches one in a headlock. It's all brash and bold and she looks for all the world like she knows what she's doing.

But right now, the Death Eaters don't care what her smile looks like. They don't care for her laugh, or who she fights like. They don't care if she's brave.

It's a lucky shot that gets her, in the end. She's too busy planning her next move, and impulsively lurching to the right, all the while laughing and smiling, because she's almost enjoying it. She enjoys seeing their faces fall as they hit the ground.

But it's sent her way and she's distracted. She can just see it out of the corner of her eye and vaguely wonders what type of curse is that much of a vivid green.

Carlene Mckinnon once said that her twin fought like a Slytherin, laughed like a Ravenclaw and smiled like a Hufflepuff.

But at Marlene's funeral, she only mentioned one thing. "She died like a Gryffindor."


End file.
